The beginning of the Year of Faith marks the fiftieth anniversary of the opening of the Second Vatican Council on 11 October 1962. In his apostolic letter Porta Fidei, Pope Benedict XVI reminds us that the Year of Faith provides ‘a good opportunity to help people understand that the texts bequeathed by the Council Fathers, in the words of Blessed John Paul II, “have lost nothing of their value or brilliance”.’ A goal of this year, therefore, is to become familiar with the documents of Vatican II, and to make them ‘widely known’ (n. 5). In this spirit, Veritas are happy to offer excerpts from Bishop Donal Murray’s book, Keeping Open the Door of Faith: The Legacy of Vatican II on a monthly basis. We hope that these short excerpts will inspire those who read them to study for themselves the documents of Vatican II.